


Too Young

by bigbodaciousbuddie (onlyforlouiswt)



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Baby Evan "Buck" Buckley, Childhood Friends, Fluff and Angst, How Do I Tag, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Two halves of a whole idiot, baby eddie diaz, best friends to enemies to lovers, jk buddie's gonna be canon i'm claiming it, no beta we die like my hopes for buddie after season 4a, wow those aren't existing tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29961921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyforlouiswt/pseuds/bigbodaciousbuddie
Summary: Eddie slowly goes to sit across the baby, careful to tuck his tiny legs underneath him. Evan looks up at him curiously as Eddie holds out a hand because it’s what adults do when they meet someone new and they want to be nice.“Hi Evan. I’m Eddie.”Wide blue eyes stare at him unblinking for a moment. But then a giggle. Evan started gurgling happily at him, grabbing the older boy's hand as he bounced up and down. Eddie couldn’t help but smile at the tiny baby as he shakes both of their hands enthusiastically.“Look at him, he’s excited to meet you.” Margaret tells Eddie, a smile evident in her voice.orEddie and Buck meet when they're four and two years old, respectively. We follow them along as they grow up together, fall apart, and find their way back to each other.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	Too Young

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! so this will be my first ever fic. please be gentle with me!
> 
> this AU had been living in my head rent free for the better part of a month. i couldn't take it anymore. i'm by no means a writer but i just had to do it.
> 
> the title (and all the chapter titles) is from Louis Tomlinson's Too Young. please give it a listen, it's a lovely song.
> 
> i hope people like this! and i hope i give buddie justice lmao.
> 
> also, english isn't really my first language, so i might fuck up every once in a while. haha. feel free to correct me though. :)

Eddie was four years old when his mom had all but dragged him across the street to say hello to the new neighbours who had just recently moved in. He didn’t want to go. His sisters were having a tea party and he wanted to be the one to pour the tea. They never let him do it. Eddie was a boy, they said, and boys were messy. But he had been practicing pouring juice into his sippy cup, and he thinks he’d be good at pouring tea.

“It’s only the polite thing to do, Edmundo. We need to welcome them into the neighbourhood.” His mom tells him as she straightens up his clothes.

The thing is, Eddie doesn’t really want to be polite. So he pouts and stomps his foot as his mom gets him to put his shoes on. He almost wants to cry but he knows that it’s not nice to cry, his Papi always tells him that.

“Come on, _mijo_. Be good.” Helena tells him as she leads him towards the front door, one hand holding Eddie’s and the other holding a plate of freshly baked cookies. “I hear the new neighbours have a baby boy, maybe you’d like him. You said you wanted a new friend to play with.”

He thinks about it. He _did_ want a new friend. Eddie’s not sure about a baby though. How much fun could they be? They don’t do much and Eddie thinks he would much rather play with his sisters.

“Okay, Eddie.” His mom chuckles at him when he refuses to let go of his pout. “If you come with Mama to meet the nice people, I will give you an extra cookie after dinner. How’s that sound?”

Eddie lights up at the thought of an extra cookie. “Okay mama! I’ll be good!” He exclaims as they cross the street and walk up the driveway of their new neighbours.

His mom lets go of his hand to knock on the door. The house looks standard enough. Nothing too special about it, Eddie thinks. His house looks way better. 

Not even a minute later, a blonde lady shorter than his mom opens the door. She has bright blue eyes and she’s giving Eddie’s mom a huge smile.

“Hello! I’m Helena Diaz. We live right across from you. Just wanted to stop by and give you a warm welcome.” Eddie looks up at his mom as she extends the cookies towards the lady who accepts it with the same unwavering smile.

“This is so lovely of you. Thank you! Come on in." The blonde lady walks further into the house, letting Eddie and his mom inside. Apologizing for the chaos, the lady tells them they were still in the process of unpacking. It’s harder to finish it when you have two very young children you need to look after, she adds.

“I’m Margaret Buckley, by the way. My husband’s name is Phillip but he’s out with our daughter right now. Apparently Maddie just _had to_ see the park.” The lady, Margaret, says as she sets the plate of cookies down on the counter beside their toaster. She gestures towards the pot on her stovetop when she asks Helena, “would you like some tea? I was just about to make one myself.”

“Please.” Helena nods at the other woman as she takes a seat in one of the chairs by the breakfast counter.

Eddie looks around the inside of the Buckley house, it kind of looks like theirs but there isn’t much to it yet. Unlike theirs, he thinks, which had stuff everywhere. And he means _everywhere_. They had drawings covering their entire refrigerator and on hung up on some of the walls in the house, works of art courtesy of the Diaz siblings. Toys littered the whole place too, him and his sisters never really bothering to put them back much to their parents’ dismay. His parents also left a few of their things here and there, but they were much more neat about their stuff than Eddie and his sisters will ever be. So far, Eddie only sees lots and lots of boxes but he guesses those are where the drawings and the toys and the family stuff were.

The whistling of the pot startles Eddie a little bit, making him press himself into his mom’s legs and latch onto the fabric of her corduroy pants. Margaret finishes making the tea and when she rounds the counter to give it to his mom, her eyes land on Eddie for the first time since they got into the house.

“And who is this?” An amused lilt to her voice.

“This is my youngest, Eddie. He heard you had a baby boy and he wanted to tag along so he could meet him.” Eddie looks up at his mom with furrowed eyebrows. He absolutely does not remember being the one to ask his mom if he could meet the baby. He shrugs though, because he might as well. Since he’s already here.

“Oh what a lovely boy. Alright, let me go see if Evan is awake.”

Margaret then disappears up the stairs, probably going up to the nursery to get the baby. Eddie feels a sudden zing of excitement. He imagines what the baby would look like. Does he already have teeth? Does he already have hair? And if he does, what colour would it be? Would the baby like him? And would the baby wanna play with him?

His thoughts are interrupted when Margaret calls out for them from the hallway. Helena gets up to follow Margaret into the living room, Eddie right behind her. Margaret put the baby down onto the rug laid right in the middle of the room, in front of the huge beige couch. 

The baby, Evan, was wearing a baby blue onesie dotted with purple baby elephants. Eddie thinks he already has something in common with Evan, he too likes baby elephants very much. He had the same bright blue eyes as his mom. His blonde hair was long enough that it has started to curl around the edges.

Evan coos at Margaret who takes a seat on the couch beside Helena. He reaches out to her but he topples over, catching himself as he giggles and bounces up and down on his arms. It looks like he’s trying to do push ups, Eddie thinks.

“Eddie go on, say hi to Evan.” Helena says to Eddie as she gently pushes him towards the baby. “It’s okay, _mijo_.”

Eddie slowly goes to sit across the baby, careful to tuck his tiny legs underneath him. Evan looks up at him curiously as Eddie holds out a hand because it’s what adults do when they meet someone new and they want to be nice. 

“Hi Evan. I’m Eddie.”

Wide blue eyes stare at him unblinking for a moment. But then a giggle. Evan started gurgling happily at him, grabbing the older boy’s hand as he bounced up and down. Eddie couldn’t help but smile at the tiny baby as he shakes both of their hands enthusiastically.

“Look at him, he’s excited to meet you.” Margaret tells Eddie, a smile evident in her voice.

Eddie’s giggling now. He finds Evan too cute, he kind of wants to smush his cheeks. But that’s not polite, and he needs to be polite. His Mama and Papi always taught him to be polite.

Maybe saying hello to the new neighbours wasn’t too bad after all. Maybe it was even worth missing the tea party, because now Eddie had a new friend. He had someone new to play with. Someone he could teach all the big boy stuff he knows. Someone he could bring to his sisters’ tea parties, and show off how good Eddie could pour the tea into the tiny cups to. Eddie was excited, his mind was coming up with lots of ideas for his adventures with Evan.

“Can he please be my friend?” Eddie looks back at his mom doing what he does best, his puppy dog eyes. His mom just nods at him while Margaret laughs softly beside her.

After their visit, Eddie tells his Papi and his sisters all about his new friend. Excitedly telling them about how he played with Evan and begging them let him please go over to the Buckleys tomorrow so he can show his new friend his favourite stuffed toys. Helena just smiles at him the whole time. And if she realizes that Eddie forgets he was even promised an extra cookie for his troubles, then it's better for the others to be none the wiser. 

\---

Eddie was over at the Buckley household almost every day. His parents try to tell him that he can’t always be there, that he has to spend time with his sisters too. But Eddie can’t help that Evan is his favourite person in the whole world _right now_. He can’t help that Evan turned out to be so much fun. The tiny blue-eyed baby does nothing but giggle and laugh at him, which makes Eddie feel like he’s the funniest person to ever exist.

He never liked sharing his toys with his sisters, but with Evan he finds that he doesn’t mind at all. In fact, he loves bringing his toys over to show the baby, to see which ones he’d like. He also liked colouring with Evan, although what the 2-year old does can hardly be called colouring. Eddie just liked seeing tiny Evan happily giggle as he grabs at the crayons with both hands and messily drag them across the paper. It ends up being a mess of colours, but Eddie still likes it.

Eddie also really liked it when Maddie was around to play with them. She was older than all of them, older than even his sisters, but she never acted like she was too cool to hang out with all of them. 

Whenever she could, Maddie would read books for Evan and Eddie. She was so good at doing the voices that Eddie always looked forward to reading with her. Also, don’t tell Mr. and Mrs. Buckley this but Maddie teaches them how to do little pranks. Well, Eddie mostly because Evan is still too much of a baby to be of any help. But it’s always so fun sneaking around with Maddie, talking in hushed whispers as they hide behind corners or crouch down behind couches, getting ready to startle Eddie’s poor, unsuspecting sisters.

Eddie was really happy about his new friends. Not that his sisters were boring, but they always told him not to touch any of their things. He always felt like he was not welcome whenever he played with them, and he never got to do what he really wants to do. His sisters had all these silly rules he needed to follow, and it's hard to keep up with so many of them. With Evan and Maddie though, Eddie gets to play however he wants because there are no rules! They just have fun together! And best of all, Evan is always there laughing happily at him like Eddie’s his favourite person in the whole world too.

\---

“Eddie! Eddie!” Evan calls out to his best friend as soon as he sees him coming home from school.

Eddie was now six years old, Evan four, and yet they were still attached at the hip. Eddie was in kindergarten now though, that means he has to go to school and spend less time playing with the younger boy. Evan tries not to be too sad about it. Maddie tells him that he will get to go to school soon and then he’d see Eddie there as much as he’d like, and that there was a playground there where they could both play in.

“What’s up, Evan! Look at what I got!” Eddie ran up to where he was sat on the steps of their wrap-around porch (it's where he waited for Eddie everyday), clearly very excited about something he got. 

“What’s that?” Evan tilts his head at Eddie curiously. His imagination runs wild, he thinks of tons of possible new toys they both could play with.

“It’s a gold star! Mrs. Hunt gave it to me because I helped my friend Jamie colour his drawing.” Eddie proudly holds out the back of his right hand where a gold star sticker was placed. He was puffing his chest out, clearly very proud of himself, beaming from ear to ear as he encouraged Evan to look at his gold star. Disappointment blossoms in Evan's chest because it's not a cool new toy. And then he realizes something. 

“You... you coloured without me?” Evan’s bottom lip started to quiver and his eyes started to well up with tears. Eddie had new friends and he was colouring without him. He won’t be cool enough for Eddie and they won’t get to play together anymore. Evan will not be Eddie’s best friend anymore and that made him want to cry a lot.

“Hey, no, don’t cry.” Eddie crouches down at where he was sitting on the last step of the stairs. And as if he could read Evan’s mind, he assures the younger boy. “You’re still my favourite colouring partner! Don’t worry, kid.” Eddie swipes at his tear-stained cheeks and pats him on the top of his head. Evan feels better now because he’s still Eddie’s best friend. So he furiously wipes at his own eyes and sniffles one last time before he gives Eddie a wobbly smile.

“C’mon, Mama’s making grilled cheese. I know you love those.” Evan let out a giggle as Eddie took hold of his hand and led him across the street. He really did love grilled cheese, especially Mama Helena’s.

“Okay.”

Eddie announces their arrival at their house, calling out to his mom telling her that Evan’s here to get a grilled cheese too. They go straight to the living room where Eddie left his new train set out, sitting Evan down so they could both play with it.

The boys don’t see Eddie’s mom fondly roll her eyes at them because, of course, Evan is here when Eddie gets home. She can never really get them to stay apart for more than half a day. So she goes to call Margaret to tell her Evan’s with them before she gets started on making snacks for her boys.

\---

“Wow! This is so cool!” Evan says in awe as he stares at the treehouse built right in the middle of the Diazes’ backyard. He’d been asking his own dad to build one for him but he was always told that it was a waste of time and money, and that he’d get bored of it almost immediately.

“It’s so awesome! Papi built all of it! I helped cut all the wood with the saw!” Eddie tells him as the older boy started climbing up the ladder that lead to the top.

Eddie was now eight, Evan now six. They still lived in each other’s pockets, though. Absolutely inseparable.

Evan had just started kindergarten, too. He liked going to school a lot, getting to make lots of new friends. As much as he’s having fun there though, he still looks forward to going home and playing with his best friend. Eddie is still the coolest person he knows. Nobody in his class is just as cool. Nobody in his class can draw and colour better than Eddie. Nobody is as funny as Eddie. Nobody is as brave and as fun as Eddie. Eddie is just the best.

And now, he’s gotten so much cooler. He’s got a treehouse in his backyard! That’s probably worth a bajillion cool points!

“You are the coolest boy I know, Eddie!” Evan all but shouts at him as Eddie has now made his way to the top.

“I know!” Eddie answers him. “Come on, Evan! You’ll love it here.”

Evan hesitates. He’s not really afraid of heights but he hasn’t climbed something that tall in his life. He’s afraid he’s gonna fall and get hurt, and he’s afraid his parents will get mad at him. Eddie must have sensed his hesitation because he starts climbing back down to where the younger boy was stood still.

“Are you scared?” Eddie asks him as he jumps the last two steps of the wooden ladder, landing on his feet with a soft thud on the grassy earth beneath him, his big brown eyes full of concern.

Evan nods at the older boy timidly, afraid that his best friend would think him less cool. Eddie doesn’t think that though, because he’s the nicest person to ever exist too. Instead, he takes Evan’s hand and leads him towards the bottom of the ladder.

“Don’t worry, I got you.” Eddie assures with the softest smile ever. Evan starts feeling a little braver because of Eddie’s presence and the reassuring squeeze his hand receives. “You can do it. Just do what I did, okay? Promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

With that, Evan reaches up to take a hold of the wrung right above his head as he hoists himself up onto the first step of the ladder. He does what he saw Eddie do earlier, taking the ladder one step at a time, holding on tightly. He doesn’t look back down but he knows Eddie will be there to catch him if he ever does fall. Eventually he gets to the top and he takes a huge sigh of relief. 

He did it. He really did it.

“Good job, kid!” Eddie tells him as soon as the older boy joins him at the top. “I told you, you could do it.”

Evan preens at the proud tone in Eddie’s voice, and the dazzling smile shot his way. Evan can’t help but think how lucky he is to have a best friend like Eddie, who hasn’t gotten bored of him yet. Who hasn’t left him for his other older, probably cooler friends. So Evan gives Eddie the biggest hug ever, just to show him how much he loves him.

“Okay, okay.” Eddie chuckles at him, giving Evan one last squeeze before gently pushing against his shoulders. “Check it out! Papi helped me with the inside too!”

Evan spins around in place, taking it all in. He’s pretty sure his jaw fell to the floor.

The inside of the tree house looks like magic. Eddie and his Papi painted it with all of their favourite colours, blue and yellow and red and green. All of their favourite toys were already there and most of the drawings they made together were hung up on the walls. There were two bean bags pushed against the wall to the left which had a huge window. There was a sign that said ‘No Girls Allowed,’ which made Evan giggle a little. And there was a balcony looking over the whole backyard, with a telescope stationed to the right. Evan gets a little too excited about the telescope, he kinda squeals.

Evan is smiling so big, it kinda hurts his cheeks a little. This tree house is theirs. Just for him and Eddie. It’s gonna be like their hideout or like a superhero headquarters. A place where they can both have the most fun together. Evan imagines that they’re high up in the clouds. So high up nothing can reach them and he likes that. He likes that up here, it’s just him and his best friend, and no one else.

“This gonna be the best ever, Eddie!” Evan tells his best friend as he hops from one foot to the other all around the tree house, admiring all the other stuff Eddie and his Papi put up there.

“It’s totally gonna be awesome.”

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you think!! i'm terrified, but comments of any kind will be appreciated! jk, no mean ones please. :(
> 
> come scream with me on tumblr, bigbodaciousbuddie.
> 
> i'll try to update this as much as law school will allow me. please bear with me.


End file.
